Another Note on Combat Range

[Cambastian]

I know: Oh god, not more talk about combat ranges! I'm sorry. But this one is really specific and I think doesn't need to be addressed with any kind of systemic change, which is why I'm bringing it up separately. Also, don't hurt me.

So, as of the latest rebalance to ranges, weapons are able to hit at their ideal range and one range beyond that with no penalty. Anything less than ideal range, they do take a penalty. Hooray! That's actually working pretty well. I think I was a naysayer, but it practice it's been feeling good.

However, this gives us a problem with 'Far' ranged weapons, those being Polearms and Whips. The problem being there's only one range past Far, and that's Extended. If treated like other weapons, Polearms and Whips could hit Extended as they used to be able to, but that would end up with them able to hit anywhere in a room, no matter if the target is twenty spaces away. Azarial tells me they can't do that anymore, and I'm sure we can all agree that's as it should be.

Unfortunately though, that means Whip and Polearm are the only two weapons who don't get two ranges where you can use them ideally. The only time they are not penalized is at Far range. Now, you could argue that's a nice balance for being able to strike first in a long-range situation, except that we have a Medium-Far weapon, Staff, that can hit Far just as easily but can also be used at Medium-Far without penalty. And it's not hampered in small rooms like a Polearm.

In my mind, that's a serious balance problem! Staff gets every advantage of a Polearm or Whip, without any of their disadvantages. Having said that, I know we're unwilling to get too deep into changing the combat range system so I thought I'd suggest a simple fix for people to consider:

How do we feel about making Polearms and Whips Medium-Far instead of Far? This allows them to hit two ranges without penalty, like any other weapon. I think that's certainly fair. One could argue Whips and Polearms ought to be longer than a Staff... but I'm not sure that's strictly true, and at the moment they aren't able to hit any further anyway so there's no real practical change there.

Thoughts?

[Dice]

I'm certainly biased, considering my general issues with combat range, but I think this an undeniable point: if far weapons are identical to medium-far weapons but for being slightly hampered, then by all means that's gotta be fixed!

Personally I would suggest a larger and more drastic solution, such as making all ranges be two steps instead of one step, but I think if we want to fix this with a minimal amount of coding this is definitely the easiest approach.